Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press. [P360P]
After President Donald Trump's administration instituted a "zero tolerance" policy in 2018, which caused the separation of thousands of migrant families at the southern U.S. border; today, 545 children still separated from their mothers and fathersas these have not been located.
So said lawyers appointed by a federal judge to identify the migrant families that were separated since 2017, after the presentation of a report by the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU.
ACLU Deputy Director of the Immigration Rights Project Lee Gelernt stressed that it is critical to find out "as much as possible" who was responsible for the horrific practice, while keeping in mind that hundreds of families still have not been located and remain separated.
"People are asking when we will find all these families and, unfortunately, I can't give an answer. I just don't know", he said.
He assured that will not stop searching until each family is found.s, no matter how long it takes, since the tragic reality is that hundreds of mothers and fathers were deported to Central America without their children.
The "zero tolerance" policy resulted in the separation of 2,800 families.most of them in U.S. custody. However, more than 1,000 parents separated from their children had already been deported when a federal judge in California ordered the migrant families reunited, according to NBC News.
The committee of lawyers that was selected for the task, including the ACLU, has been able to contact the parents of more than 550 children, and believes that 25 of them may have the opportunity to return to the United States to be reunited.
Gelernt noted that some of the families have chosen to keep their children in this country with other family members or friends, "for fear of what will happen to their children if they return to their home countries.
In a statement, the Department of Health and Human Services, detailed that the aforementioned 545 minors were duly discharged from the "unaccompanied alien children" program ?of the Office of Refugee Resettlement? by June 23, 2018.
